More than a Metaphor

Mornings with Myself // 17:40:2022

There's this shift that happens in my body with this practice. Usually I'm at least several minutes in, and sometimes it takes all 20-30 minutes of my movement: I start to feel the way my head is trying to lead the way, control things, hold the rest of me up. I mean my literal head, skull, face, and of course my mind is involved too - always thinking, always racing ahead, reaching for a conclusion, always trying to figure everything out. Mind, Body, Behavior. The body provides such brilliant metaphors for the way we move through life, and it is more than a metaphor. It *is how* we move through life. What we do in the body, we do with our selves, we do in relationships, we do in the world. The way our body moves us through life, is the way our body moves us through life. It is the container for it all.

It takes time for me to *feel* this dynamic, and more time still for my body to be able to let this unnecessary effort go, and allow my head to arrive humbly, easefully atop my shoulders. It is a relief, to let this go. It is a relief, to let go of any and every amount of excessive effort (there is so much, so much, I am so patterned to *effort*, to exert.) I've been thinking about this, *feeling* this, experiencing this in bones deep ways as I settle into new understandings of myself, as I let go of more effort, more performance, more than I knew was there. And I am so grateful, so grateful for the relief, the release, in any moment it becomes possible.